Epic of the Dragonborn
by Morgana Maeve
Summary: All legends are born someplace, some more noble than others.
1. Of Wagons and Dragons

Epic of the Dragonborn

by

Morgana Maeve

**Chapter 1: Of Wagons and Dragons**

Author's Note: Wow, it's been nearly four years since I've been here. And look, a new fandom! Craziness.

Warning: Strong language and violent images. This is Skyrim, people. It was rated M for a reason and I'm not going to clean it up for y'all. Skyrim is too amazing for nonsense like that.

Disclaimer: I own nothing except for the idea of the main character. Bethesda owns everything.

…

She wakes as the wagon lurches down the path, each bump and jerk of the wheels biting deep into her bruised, almost broken bones. The smell of horse shit and unwashed bodies is thick in the air, and she raises her hands to wipe at her nose. The last she remembers is blood on the snow...her blood? Necromancer blood? Her sister's blood? Blood on the dagger.

Her hands are bound, ropes digging into her gaunt wrists.

Panic sets in then, the same white flames that had gripped her in the cave before...before what had happened in the cave. Her eyes roll back. _ Got to get out, got to get out, got to get out._ Her back slams against the wall of the wagon, shakes loose a plank, and she gets a jab in the spine - _oh Talos, the spine! _- for her efforts.

"Settle down there," a voice commands, but she's too far gone to recognize it as anything but an enemy. She struggles harder, lips pulling back in a feral grimace of sheer rage and helplessness, and the jabs become harder, rain down on her shoulders and neck. "Settle down, Stormcloak scum!"

Stormcloak. Yes, yes, she had gone to the Stormcloaks. Had she? Yes, yes, she had. For something. Friends? Brothers. Brothers? Something. Stormcloaks. Nords. Nords were good.

These are not Nordic voices, not for the most part. She can catch some chatter, some familiar accents, but mostly foreign, foreign faces, foreign armor. Her brain struggles with them, tries to place them, tries to remember some history, some past before the cave...the cave. The white flames threaten to consume her again, to take her back to the cave.

She doesn't want to go back to the cave. The cave, the cave is a bad place.

Movement to her left and right and front. She jerks her head around, cracks her fragile neck in her haste. She gasps through her teeth.

Three men, dirty men, sitting with her. Watching her. Her body wants to reach for the familiar weight of her greatsword at her back, but of course that's gone now, left in the cave. Her clothes are gone too, she realizes belatedly. Dirty rags cover her skin, offer no resistance to the cold wind blowing down the mountain. She shivers violently, more from everything else than the cold.

_Been cold a long time, long time. So cold. Fire was for Necromancers only, not us, not me. Cold bars in the cave, ice cold._

"Hey, you!" She jumps, almost falls off the sliver of bench she's perched on. It's a Nordic voice though, and that means she can relax a bit. Nords are good. Nords are friends. "You're finally awake."

She finds enough strength and sense to nod, manages to croak, "What happened...?"

"You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us and that thief over there."

He gestures to the other dirty man, a small man, mousy, dark-haired and dark-eyed. Sullenly, he glances over all of them and shrugs slightly, looks away, looks back.

"Damn you Stormcloaks," the mousy one snaps. "Skyrim was fine until you came along. The Empire was nice and lazy." She can't tell what he is, Stormcloak, Imperial...Imperials...bad? Good? Soldiers. Not from Skyrim. Outsiders. Why are they in Skyrim? She tries, but her brain can only go as far back as the cave before it delves into white noise and scatters, taking her with it. Just staying there in the wagon, in the present, is hard enough. "If they hadn't been looking for you," he continued, glaring at the Stormcloak - Nord, blonde, dirty, familiar - "I could have stolen that horse and been halfway to Hammerfell." He turns to her suddenly, and she reels back, shows him her teeth. He doesn't seem to care. "You there. You and me, we shouldn't be here. It's the Stormcloaks the Empire wants."

"We're all brothers and sisters in binds now, thief," the Stormcloak says. She stares at him. Familiar. She's seen him before. But where? Why? How? Who is he? From the depths of the white flames, she pulls the name Ralof. Ralof? This is Ralof. Yes, she knows that he is Ralof. Somehow.

"Shut up back there!" the driver yells. Ralof and the horse thief ignore him. The other passenger, prisoner, sits quiet, proud. She finds herself drawn to him, for reasons unknown. He is commanding, regal almost. Also familiar. Maybe. It's a vague memory of someone like him, or actually him, or Talos knows.

"What's wrong with him, huh?" the thief asks, jerking his head towards the silent passenger.

"Watch your tongue!" Ralof spits at him. "You're speaking to Ulfric Stormcloak, the true High King!"

"Ulfric?" the thief repeats. "The Jarl of Windhelm? You're the leader of the rebellion! But if they've captured you...Oh Gods, where are they taking us?" His voice rises in pitch, in fear, and she simply stares at Ulfric, uncomprehending.

The Rebellion is something she knows of, slightly. It exists somewhere in the distant past locked away in her memory. It has something to do with politics, she remembers, politics and Thalmor, whatever that was. Fires. Death. Displacement. It's part of the reason why she's here, isn't it? She thinks it might be. Part of the reason. Perhaps she had been a Stormcloak? What were they anyway? If she didn't know, did that mean she wasn't one?

Ralof speaks quietly. "I don't know where we're going, but Sovengarde awaits."

"No, this can't be happening! This isn't happening!"

She can relate to that. It's a phrase she's repeated to herself over and over again, as far back as the flames will allow her to remember.

The forest begins to thin, and a town opens up before them, a small one that's unfamiliar to her. Most of Skyrim is. She knows the cave, but was that even in Skyrim? She has no idea. It was somewhere. Somewhere bad. Necromancers were there and Necromancers are bad. Her spine tingles, prickles under her skin. It's always felt different since...since then. Her mind shudders, runs away from it, and she nearly passes out again, if not for the constant jarring and shaking of the wagon keeping her firmly awake.

Horse shit and sweat. This is how she dies, is that it? To survive for so long, only to die like this. Not befitting for a Nord, not at all. But she can't really complain against it. It will be nice to not feel the pain anymore. Sovengarde is supposed to be nice. It'll be better than horse shit and sweat. Perhaps Helga will be there. And Solveig. Though Helga didn't die in battle. Or, rather, she did, but not in the kind of battle a Nord wants to die in.

Solveig...

"Hey. What village are you from, horse thief?" That from Ralof, sitting there, quietly accepting his fate.

"Why do you care?"

"A Nord's last thoughts should be of home."

She doesn't remember her home. Had there been a home? A home and family, Helga, Soveig, Mother, Father, brothers? Home. Home is far away, was far away. Somewhere. Skyrim? Maybe. Somewhere. Farm. Small. Smell of wheat on the summer air.

"Rorikstead. I'm...I'm from Rorikstead."

And she, she from a cave. No thoughts of home for her.

"General Tullius, sir! The headsman is waiting!" That from an Imperial somewhere behind them. The horse thief blanches noticeably, but neither Ralof nor Ulfric give any indication of fear or terror or regret. As for her, she feels a stirring of fear deep in her belly, but relief at the thought of no more pain is enough to keep the fear from spreading to her damaged limbs.

The bindings cut into her skin and are stained red from the blood. Blood on the dagger. Blood on her face, bloody hands reaching up to make her stop. Taste of blood in her mouth, salt, metal.

"All right, let's get this over with."

"Julianos, Mara, Dibella, Kynareth, Akatosh! Divines, please help me!"

She wants to tell him that the gods don't care for one frightened horse thief. Where were the gods inside the cage? Where was Talos when home, Mother, Father, somehow disappeared from her memory?

"Look at him," Ralof says in sudden contempt. "General Tullius, the military governor. And it looks like the Thalmor are with him. Damn elves. Bet they had something to do with this." Her eyes find the back of General Tullius, slide over him to the Thalmor agents, dressed in black and robes. Necromancer-like. She decides she doens't like them, and their familiarity in her mind is linked with intense dislike. High Elves. Thalmor agents. High Elves roaming the countryside

The ban against Talos. Yes, Thalmor and Talos, and Talos worship and bans. No one can worship Talos, Thalmor orders. Damn High Elves, thinking they can rule everything. High Elves, not human, not Nord. How can they understand Talos? They can't.

_Fire. Embers in the wind. Run from that. Don't get burned_.

An old memory? Childhood? No. Feels more recent.

General Tullius doesn't watch the wagons pass. His back stays firmly turned, though he must know the thorn in his side named Ulfric Stormcloak is on one of them, humbled like all the rest at the thought of losing his poised, regal head. Maybe he's savoring his victory, like the icing on a sweet roll.

"This is Helgen," Ralof continues. "I used to be sweet on a girl from here. Wonder if Veelad is still making that mead with the juniper berries mixed in." He pauses, then says sadly, "Funny. When I was a boy, Imperial walls and towers used to make me feel so safe."

"These are my first," she whispers. Home had no walls around it, to protect or dismay. Home had been open, the smell of leather in the night. Solveig curled up on her arm, blonde hair tickling her nose. Warm blankets for their toes.

A boy speaks to them from a house, stares at the wagon with a mix of wonder and fear. He wants to know where they're going. She feels like telling him death, death is where they're all going, and he'll join too one day if he's not careful. Today will be the death of innocence for him if he follows. His father swoops in and orders him into the house. Smart man. Keep the boy safe for one more day. One more day before he has to find out what the headsman is.

"Get these prisoners out of the carts! Move it!" a female solider yells. The horses slow, come to a halt. The fear in her belly spikes, sends jolts through her tired legs, and the flames inch up her arms and demand a greatsword to prove her worth to these Imperial captors. If only, if only. Accepting death when it's an abstraction is one thing. Accepting it when it's four feet from your body is another. Give her the horse shit and sweat and let her roll in it if it meant living an extra day longer.

But Helga and Solveig...She'd like to see them again. And Mother and Father. Home. Sovengarde. The fear recedes.

"Why are we stopping?" The horse thief's voice quivers in unmasked terror.

"Why do you think? End of the line," Ralof answers.

Ulfric says nothing, sits there bound and gagged.

She says nothing, just shakes from the cold and the fear and relief and the damn shaking wagon wheels.

The horses stop, the wheels creak to a standstill, and the guards start motioning the prisoners to step down. Funny how she doesn't really see herself as a prisoner. Like the thief said, she doesn't belong here. She just happens to be here, and that's that.

Her legs don't want to support her as she stands. Mottled bruises cover the bits of skin she can see through the rags, and the rags covering her feet are bloody. There's probably an infection in there somewhere. Among them, Ulfric is the only one who seems in control, as if he planned this, or is planning something in that silent mind of his that will get him out of this mess, will maybe get them all out of this mess. Most of these prisoners are his men and women, save she and the thief. Would he take pity on a Nordic girl and save her too? She doesn't know enough about him to make a decision. Ulfric Stormcloak, the leader of the rebellion. The Jarl of somewhere. Windsomething. Too many differing opinions on him for a solid thought. He likes Nords. She is Nord. Maybe he will rescue her.

Where was the rescue in the cave?

"Let's go," Ralof tells her. "Shouldn't keep the guards waiting for us."

"No wait, we're not rebels!" the thief cries. She sees Ulfric skewer him with a gaze of contempt, but the thief doesn't notice, only blubbers more about how he's not ready to die.

"Face your death with some courage, thief."

"You've got to tell them we weren't with you! This is a mistake!"

The female soldier speaks again. "Step towards the block when we call your name. One at a time!" Her voice hints at her power, at how much she likes to use it. Dangerous woman, that one is.

Ralof sighs. "The Empire loves their damn lists."

A male voice this time. "Ulfric Stormcloak, Jarl of Windhelm." Ah, Windhelm. She's heard stories of Windhelm, somewhere in the past. A good place. Welcoming. If you're a Nord.

"It has been an honor, Jarl Ulfric." No regrets from Ralof.

"Ralof of Riverwood." Ralof walks calmly, throws a defiant look to the guards, and takes his place before the block. "Lokir of Rorickstead."

"No, I'm not a rebel! You can't do this!" His movements are too jumpy, to sporadic. He's going to run, she realizes. _No, don't run. Never run from a predator_. Don't run, she urges in her mind. But he runs anyway, sprints past the female soldier, wobbling on legs that have no balance.

"Halt!" the soldier screams.

"You're not going to kill me!"

"Archers!"

And that's the end of Lokir of Rorickstead. She never sees the arrow fly but hears the twang of the bow and the death-gurgle of the horse thief as he falls, twitches, and finally dies. A good clean shot, probably in the neck. Merciful. Better than the headsman. Much better. A good clean death with only a few seconds of pain.

"Anyone else feel like running?"

No. She's tired, injured, cold. No energy to run.

"Wait, you there." The male guard is looking at her, his quill posed above his list. She goes very still, locks her mouth. "Step forward." Her legs move automatically, but the rest of her body is rigid, waiting, anticipating an attack. "Who are you?"

Who is she? That's a good question. She doesn't know who she is herself. She stares at him, watches him stare back at her. What must he see? A dark-haired and dark-skinned Nord, sunburned and fire-burned and messy. Coal-ringed eyes to keep the fleas out of them. Bushy hair, unwashed and uncombed for months, matted at her neck. Was the hand-print still there, brown in dried blood? A frame that's too thin to support her body, small breasts, small waist, reedy arms that used to be able to carry pounds of loot and are now just skin and bone. Bruises, cuts, dirt.

He was much more Nordic-looking than her, clean and fresh-shaven, longish hair hitting just below his chin. Imperial armor though, sad. His eyes wait for her patiently, wait for her to find her voice, her identity.

Who is she, he asked. Better to start with a name.

"Olga," she says, and her voice cracks from disuse. She's not used to speaking in anything more than a scream. "Olga, sister of Helga." It's been a long time since anyone's spoken Helga's name. But soon she will see her sisters again.

"You picked a bad time to come home to Skyrim, kinswoman," the man says to her. "Captain, what should we do? She's not on the list."

"Forget the list. She goes to the block." Olga's eyes narrow, and the bloodlust rises in her chest.

_Bitch, may you rot where you stand. The man can stay, but you can rot._

If she'd had her greatsword...but no, nothing but empty air on her back.

"By your orders, Captain." He turns to Olga, and there's pity in his eyes. She wants to spit on his pity, on his willingness to lie down at the Imperials' feet like a dog. "I'm sorry. At least you'll die here, in your homeland. Follow the Captain, prisoner."

"Olga," she whispers. "I am Olga. Not your prisoner."

They all gather around the block, about half a dozen Stormcloaks and herself. Jarl Ulfric stands a bit apart from them, taller and more kingly, a fine example of a Nord. No small wonder that people follow him. General Tullius walks up to him and plants his feet directly across from Jarl Ulfric. Too close for decorum. He doesn't understand deference, or more likely doesn't recognize Jarl Ulfric as a leader.

"Ulfric Stormcloak." General Tullius' voice is powerful, condescending, as if he is speaking to a wayward child. "Some here in Helgen call you a hero. But a hero doesn't use a power like the Voice to murder his king and usurp his throne." Murder? King? "You started this war, plunged Skyrim into chaos, and now the Empire is going to put you down and restore the peace."

_Pretty words for one who hasn't done anything. Get out of Nord business._

A few of the Stormcloaks resist against their bonds, but everyone stops when the wind carries a sound like metal scraping against metal down from the mountains. A battle perhaps. The echoes die off. People look up to the sky, shift nervously from foot to foot. Not a battle. Something living, sounded like something living. Olga watches the mountains. A bird? A huge bird? But no bird makes such a metallic sound. The fear bubbles up again.

The male soldier asks no in particular, "What was that?" So, it was disturbing to others as well. Good. Good to know she's not as crazy as she thinks.

Tullius, Imperial idiot that he is waves it away. "It's nothing. Carry on."

"Yes, General Tullius." _Stupid bitch._ "Give them their last rites."

A priestess steps forward, dressed in gold robes and pompous airs, her arms spread wide as if to collect their souls even before they departed. "As we commend your souls to Aetherius, blessings of the Eight Divines upon you, for you are the salt and earth of Nirn, our beloved - "

She's cut short by an impatient Stormcloak, brave enough to voice what all of them are thinking. "For the love of Talos, shut up and let's get this over with." He strides forward, fear maybe turned to anger, or maybe just angry in general, tired of his death being drawn out by forces not his own. Not anxious to face death, no, but anxious to get it over with. Enough of the hedging and waiting. He's a brave man, if not foolhardy.

Offended, the priestess drops her arms and sniffs. "As you wish."

"Come on!" he shouts. "I haven't got all morning." Olga thinks perhaps that fear is operating in him after all, and his bluster is only his way of masking it.

The Imperial bitch pushes him to his knees, uses her foot to drop his head onto the block. The headsman takes hold of his axe and tests his grip with his fingers. The crowd mutters behind them, ill words and words of praise, curses to the Stormcloaks and curses to the Imperials. Chickens cluck. The wind blows. There's a faint scent of burning in the air, like the way the forge used to smell when Gjord used to make steel armor in it. Burnt metal and fur.

Olga blinks. Gjord? Forge? Remnants of an older life before the cave?

"My ancestors are smiling at me, Imperials. Can you say the same?" Defiant to the end. The headsman lifts his axe, and the blade gleams in the cloudy sunlight. Time for a moment suspends, seconds before the blade falls, and Olga feels her blood churning beneath her skin. Then the axe descends, cuts cleanly through flesh and tendon and muscle and bone in glut of crimson and the scent of something rotten. The blade buries itself into the wood. The man's head falls, all very slow to Olga's frozen eyes, and rolls into the basket.

_Gods, they actually are going to execute all us, aren't they. Oh Gods, no, please._ Fog hazes over her vision, seeps into her thoughts and terrifies her. To have survived this long, to have survived the Necromancers and their games, their experiments, only to die here, at the hands of Imperials who didn't care that she wasn't their enemy. _Talos, you bastard, how dare it end here._ Her hands fidget with the bindings, rub the skin off her wrists. She doesn't care. Let her out of here, let her go. Helga and Solveig can wait. They will never age in Sovengarde. They will remember their sister Olga, regardless of when she joins them. Let her go, let her go.

"You Imperial bastards!" a woman cries.

"Justice!"

"Death to the Stormcloaks!"

Ralof gives him his eulogy. "As fearless in death as he was in life."

"Next, the Nord in the rags!"

Olga's head snaps up, her eyes wide, pupils dilated so that they're all black and no brown. A more thorough chill than anything else she's ever experienced takes hold her limbs and locks them in place. Her hands fight with the ropes, cut her wrists to the bone, and she manages to strain an elbow as she twists them tighter.

Again, that strange sound, closer this time. Metal scraping on metal but alive somehow. But it's no matter. The Imperial bitch glares at her, and she finds her legs moving without her willing them to do so. Her arms still. Better to go out in pride than in fear.

_Helga, Solveig, I'm coming to you. Be ready to accept your sister when she arrives._

Will she even have her head when she enters Sovengarde? Or will she have to carry it under her arm?

"There it is again. Did you hear that?"

"I said next prisoner!"

"To the block prisoner, nice and easy."

"Olga!" she yells to him. "Olga, sister of Helga!"

She can't stride, is too injured to do more than shuffle, but Olga manages to tilt her chin up in one last act of indifference. She turns, feels the Imperial bitch's hands on her back - _the spine, don't touch the spine!_ - falls to the ground and bruises her knees more, feels the soldier's foot on her back, drops her neck onto the wood, and finds herself staring at the dead Stormcloak's head, his eyes glazed over in an expression of agony. Olga turns her own head away, rests her cheek on the warm, wet, sticky block. The headsman towers above her, reeks of blood and death in his fur and chains. She resolves to keep her eyes open, to watch as death claims her.

But traitorous mind, it screams out no, no a thousand times no. Her heart hammers in her chest as if it would explode. No, no, no, please no.

_I don't want to die here._

Her mouth opens in a silent scream of protest, and she feels a power well in her throat and explode from her lips. Olga can almost see it traveling through the air, bluish, pale, wavering and dispersing as it travels away. The headsman tests his grip again and starts raising the axe. The fear explodes in her lungs, and she pushes against the foot, struggles to rise. The Imperial bitch is too strong though, and as much as Olga struggles, she can't get her feet under her.

Her eyes find the jabbed peaks rising up in the distance. A piece of the mountain breaks away and...flies? A bird? Too large to be a bird. It's huge. Winged. A winged piece of the mountain. She's never seen anything like it, but a certain inherent, inborn fear, very different from the fear of death, makes her still to a complete stop, like an elk does when it notices a hunter. If she doesn't move, it won't see her.

"What in Oblivion is that?" Panic ripples through the crowd.

"Sentries! What do you see?"

The thing flies overhead, casts its shadow over nearly everything and everyone, and lands on the watchtower. Shock-waves shake the ground, knock the headsman off his feet, axe falling to the floor with a clang. Huge and black like death, it watches the panic it's caused with cold, reptilian eyes, and Olga stares at it, comprehending finally what this thing is sitting there before her.

_Talos help us all. _It's a dragon, a living legend, a thing that should be dead, but she'd be damned if that wasn't exactly what it was staring down at her with beady, red eyes. _It's a dragon. Talos, it's a dragon._ Oh Gods, why isn't she running?

Someone else realizes what it is. "Dragon!"

The dragon looks directly at her, and she feels as insignificant as the torchbugs she used to catch at night to make potions must have. The headsman collects himself, turns, readies his axe, and the dragon shouts - _shouts!_ - and everything goes down. The sky itself turns murky, swirls, stormy and angry, and flaming rocks fall, whistle through the air. And still, Olga can't run, can't move, just lies there, kneeling with the dead, fear permeating every fiber of her being.

If she doesn't move, it won't see her.

It shouts again, and the edge of its Voice catches her in the head, knocks her sideways and half-unconscious, and her vision goes for a second, comes back fuzzy and blurred around the edges. People scream, run, grab weapons, nearly trample her, but the fear has her paralyzed, and she lies there on the blood-soaked ground, staring, not blinking, mind reeling.

Dragon. Cave. Necromancers. Solveig. Little sullen Solveig, dead now, a pile of ash. And she too, Olga, the second-oldest sister, about to become ashes as well, in a dragon's mouth. Being burned hurts. Will being eaten hurt? How will she die anyway? Burned, eaten, trampled, dropped, spattered on the rocks?

Feet stop in front of her, hands grab her back and try to pull her up. "Hey kinswoman, get up! Come on, the Gods won't give us another chance!" Ralof. His hands pluck at her rags, pop seams as he drags her to her feet.

Olga stumbles along after him, tripping over rocks and bodies, dodging more of those flaming rocks as they fall from the sky, and trying to stay balanced on wobbling ground. Ralof ducks into the nearest keep and she follows, is wind-burned by heat as a rock explodes to her left. The force of the hit knocks her sideways, and she trips her way into the doorway, knocks into someone tall and strong who tries to steady her, but momentum carries her further and she crashes into the far wall, out of breath and heaving.

Blood hangs in the air. As she clutches the wall, feeling the rough, comforting stones shudder under her fingers, two Stormcloaks bend over a third, trying to tend to his wounds. She peers closer and immediately regrets it, springs back and wretches deep from her belly. The injured Stormcloak is nearly bit in two, guts and blood pooling all over him and the floor. That he's still alive only makes it worse. She can hear his babbling, the half-crying, half-raging wailing that marks someone who's going to die in mere seconds still clinging desperately to life.

Olga turns away from it, tries to block out the pain and the fear that resonates so soundly within her own body. Her arm is bright red, shiny, hurts more than she can tell. She flexes it and flinches, hissing at the crackling pain. There is magic to fix it, she's seen it done and has had it done to her, but she can't remember the exact way to do it, not in the midst of all this chaos.

Her ears find Ralof's voice and cling to it. "Jarl Ulfric! What was that thing? Could the legends be true?"

"Legends don't burn down villages." Jarl Ulfric's voice is liquid, smooth, almost like a creamy ale sliding down her tongue. The power underneath it makes her vibrate, draws her closer, but she resists, remembering the Voice. Like the dragon, he has the Voice. Just as dangerous, if not moreso because he is human. "We need to move, now!"

"Up through the tower, let's go!"

Ralof brushes past her, reaches for her arm and pulls her with him. Olga yelps in pain. The cuts on her wrists are large and deep, and the burn screams out in protest. He keeps pulling, urging her up the stairs, and she cracks an ankle against one, falls, pulls him down with her. His arms lift her by her armpits, take on her weight, and he sort of carries her, sort of drags her up to the landing. He smells like horse shit and sweat. Olga begins to laugh, a hysterical, crazy, shrill laugh, and clings to this shoulders. Ralof grunts, puts her down, and then picks her right back up and swings her down the stairs, pinning her with his body against the wall.

Over his shoulder, the wall where they had just stood implodes, and the dragon's head, thick and black and terrifying, barrels in, retreats, and fire takes its place. She screams, and the sound is drowned out by the dragon's roar, that metal on metal screech that pierces her ears and impales her brain.

Someone had been on that landing. She can hear him thrashing in the flames. Tears leak from her eyes, dampen Ralof's cuirass. Her fingers curl, but he gently shakes her off, pushes her forward. The fire has stopped. Wind rushes in, tears at her rags.

"See the inn on the other side? Jump through the roof and keep going!"

He doesn't give her any chance to resist. His hands push and her feet leave the ledge, her body traveling through open air. For a moment she is weightless, and then she lands, hard, twists an ankle, and she grunts, rolls, scrambles forward and drops through a hole in the floor to the ground.

"We'll follow when we can!" The loss of Ralof makes her nervous, more nervous than she already is, and she wants to turn back, to stay with the Stormcloaks and their protection.

Out in the open, she runs in a crouch, trying to make herself as small as possible. The dragon's shadow passes over head, and she squeals, dropping down to all fours and crawling. The dragon lands, eyes a small child, and she tries to shout for him to run, to get the hell away, but her voice sticks in her throat. The male soldier from earlier runs past her, calls for the boy, and when he comes running, picks up the child and roughly passes him along to another soldier. The dragon breathes fire again, catches the male soldier in the arm, but all he does is grimace and keep moving. Olga watches with her hands buried in her hair, staring and gaping.

"Still alive, prisoner?" he asks. "Stick close to me if you want to stay that way." He takes off, and Olga runs with him, legs like jelly, not really understanding why she's running with an Imperial, only that she must.

"Take care of the boy," he calls out. "I have to find General Tullius and join the defense!"

She doesn't want to be part of the defense. She wants to go back in the keep and huddle somewhere safe.

They run past bodies and climb over debris walls, make it to a real wall when he yells, "Take cover!" and presses himself up against it. She flails and throws herself back onto it as the dragon lands, its clawed wings inches from her face. Heat radiates off its body, rotten heat that gags her.

It flies away without noticing them. They take off running again, right into the midst of battle, bodies littering their path now along with wreckage. Several soldiers sit with their stomachs in their hands, watching in mystification as the organs slither through their fingers. One looks at her and says, "Tell my family I love them." Olga shrieks and turns her face away, tries to hide her tears.

Archers perch on arches and platforms, shooting arrows to no avail. "It just keeps coming!" one says in horror. He's young, barely a man. His face looks as though he wants to throw his bow away and run back to childhood.

Ralof suddenly runs across their path, two little axes clutched in his grip. He stops, stands in their way. "Ralof, you damned traitor," the soldier snarls. "Out of my way!"

"We're escaping, Hadvar," Ralof answers softly. "You're not going to stop us this time."

"Fine! I hope that dragon takes you all to Sovengarde!"

Hadvar runs around him and Ralof runs past her, leaving her in the middle, confused and scared. They both call for her follow them, and she turns in helpless circles, stressed and strained beyond imagine. Who to follow, if any? Who? Hadvar, the Imperial? Ralof, the Stormcloak? Both have helped. Both have hurt. Who to follow?

She begins to cry, still turning circles, while the dragon turns its own circles somewhere above her.

Who to follow? Who, who to follow?

…

I will apologize for lifting the dialogue directly from the opening sequence, but honestly, it's the opening sequence, is important for plot, and I can't write the Epic of Olga without the plot. For those of us who have watched the opening sequence more than ten times (sixteen for me), this might seem a little repetitive, especially the first few chapters. Rest assured, things will get more creative once the opening sequence and the first dungeon are past us. By the time she gets to Whiterun, we'll take a departure from the actual plot of the game and explore what makes Olga tick.


	2. Of Cages and Mages

**Chapter 2: Of Cages and Mages**

Morgana Maeve

And so we keep on with the tutorial. Gah. I want it done. Some of the dialogue won't be the same as in the game this time, just because I got tired of having to transcribe it. I wanted to be a bit more creative in this chapter anyway.

You'll also notice that some of the tutorial is missing, like the frostbite spider part. For me, it wasn't that important to this story, and so I cut for the sake of brevity. I don't want to make you slog through the tutorial any more than you and I have had to already.

Disclaimer: Bethesda owns all. I own nothing, but the idea of Olga and her family.

…

Who to follow, who to follow? The dragon flies, swoops, sets fire to the houses, and she can't decide who to follow. Such a stupid decision, petty, insignificant. People are dying and she can't decide who to follow. Helga would have been able to choose. Helga would not be standing in the middle of a ruined path while the world went to shit around her. Helga would pick up her skirts and run for the nearest gate, regardless of who was calling to her. She would have been gone already, scrambled through a hole in the wall and been halfway to the nearest town with her hair still firmly braided in place. And Solveig, tough little Sovleig, would have snatched up a warhammer from a fallen soldier and gone after the dragon herself, her stocky body moving faster than it ought to.

But neither are here right now. There's just Olga, able to do nothing more than turn tight little circles and waste valuable, precious time.

Hadvar or Ralof? Ralof or Hadvar? Nord or Imperial boot-licker? Rebel or good little soldier boy?

"Prisoner!" Hadvar yells. "This way! Hurry!"

"Olga! Over this way!" Ralof beckons from the opposite direction.

And there's the deciding factor. Olga spins on her heels and takes off after Ralof, throwing an anguished glance over her shoulder at Hadvar. She catches the last bit of his armor disappearing through a doorway. Oh well. Talos help him to survive.

Ralof keeps the door open long enough for her duck through it, and then slams it shut behind her. Her footsteps echo in the large tower, empty save for a table and a dead Stormcloak rebel. She sags in her skin and sighs, more dead than alive, images of dead bodies and burned bodies flashing across her eyes' memory every time she blinks. She sighs, presses the heels of her palms to her cheeks. Ralof slips past her and kneels over the body.

He must know who that poor body is. They had probably fought side by side in many battles. They had to have known that a day like this would come eventually. Maybe not a dragon, but still, their death always lurked somewhere just over the next mountaintop. And now it's found them.

Olga's knees buckle and she lands with a plop on the cold, vibrating stones, letting dust and mortar fall on her head as the dragon shakes her world apart. Ralof clasps his fallen comrade on the shoulder and says, "We'll meet again in Sovengarde, brother." He turns to her and touches her hair gently. "Looks like we're the only who made it. That thing was a dragon. No doubt. Just like the children's stories and legends. The harbinger of the End Times." She flinches. Scraps of childhood tales flit through her thoughts, snippets of odd songs sung at night to scare the younger whelps.

"And the Scrolls have foretold, of black wings in the cold, that when brothers wage war come unfurled," she sings. "Alduin, Bane of Kings, ancient shadow unbound..." Her voice cracks and she gasps, tears and snot running down her face. Ralof finishes the verse for her.

"With a hunger to swallow the world." They squat in silence and more of the tower falls down around them. He shakes himself, to tramp down the knowledge that Alduin flies outside, hunting them all like cattle? Olga wipes furiously at the grime flowing over her face and smudges dirt all over herself. She sniffles, snorts, bites her lip. Alduin. Alduin, alive when he should be nothing but a legend. Alduin. Black Death on wings. "We'd better get moving," Ralof continues. "Come here. Let me see if I can get those bindings off." He pulls a dagger from his waistband and proffers it at her, and she lunges away, body reactive where her mind is not, remembering the other daggers pointed at her and the burning sensation of a blade digging into her ribs.

He has to leap forward to catch her and sit on her stomach before he can cut the ropes from her wrists. She fights him the entire time and gets in a good punch once her arms are free, landing three knuckles on his shoulder in a hit makes him grunt and slap her in retaliation. The bright pain in her cheek brings her back to reality, and she stares up at him, her mouth hanging open in shock. Ralof climbs off and offers her his hand. "You may as well take Gunjar's gear. He won't be needing it anymore." Olga hesitates, one hand pressed against her cheek to lessen the sting, the idea of looting dead Gunjar's body repulsive and the idea of wearing his death clothes even moreso. Her skin crawls at the thought. "Gunjar isn't coming back from the dead," Ralof tells her impatiently. "Take his armor and anything else on him."

Her shaking hands don't make the job easy. She struggles to maneuver the cuirass off Gunjar, missing leather ties in her haste and breaking ragged nails trying to get the knots out. Blood dapples the blue cloth and has settled between the links of the chainmail, making it stiff and inflexible as she throws it on over her rags. It still smells like Gunjar, like fear and like death. Olga's stomach rolls, but it's been empty for days and the only thing that comes out of her mouth is a tiny, ill-tasting burp.

The armor doesn't fit well, and she she plucks a it, trying to tighten the belts and ties so that it'll hang better on her wasted frame, but it's a lost cause and she leaves it for his boots. The chainmail clinks heavily on her shoulders. Blood has run down into his boots and the insides are wet as she sticks her feet in them. But they're fur and warm and better than the wraps she'd had on, and she bites back the bile rising in her throat. _It'd been worse in the cave. The cave had been worse. Remember that. The cave had been much worse._

His only weapon is an iron war axe, a tiny little thing that's dull and chipped all over its blade. A fairly useless weapon to her, trained as she is with the greatsword, and the axe feels fragile and weak in her hand. A pig sticker, not much better than a dagger. She plays with it, gets a feel for it, swings it in an arc through the air and then tosses it up and snatches it from the air in old, familiar movements. Ralof watches her and she thinks she can detect mild admiration in his eyes. He'd be more impressed if he would see what she could do with a greatsword or any heavier weapon, like a battle axe. Warhammers had been too unwieldy for her to use happily.

The war axe will have to do. She feels a bit better now with a weapon and armor, no matter that they're borrowed and pitiful. The helplessness is lifting bit, even if the panic is still strong. She looks over at Gunjar.

_Thank you, brother_, she thinks. _Be well in Sovengarde. Tell Helga and Solveig I send my love._

Olga turns to Ralof and nods. Bits of her are coming back, scraps and fragments of a life on the run, hiking over mountains and raiding farmsteads, sometimes battling animals, sometimes people. The impression of violence and murder hangs over her chest. Has she murdered before? Her body feels like it has. Her arms know the tension of bones snapping beneath a hit, they know the strength it takes to cut through skin and muscle. Murder? Yes, she knows it. She's not afraid of it.

Ralof touches her shoulder again as he walks past her, squeezes it in a show of friendship. "I'm going to see if I can find a way out of here." He tries the gate and swears, fists rattling the bars. "This one's locked. Let's see about that gate." He gestures to the opposite one, and Olga walks toward it, Gunjar's war axe held loosely in her hand. The lever is on the other side of the bars. She looks back at Ralof and shakes her head. "Damn. No way to open this from our side." He runs his hands through his hair, flicking his greasy braid aside. Olga shifts from foot to foot, trying to think.

"We could break the lock on the other door." They have three axes between them. It'd be possible to at least weaken the lock to the point where they might be able to bully their weight through the gate. She turns back to the other gate, but her ears prick and she freezes, listening. Footsteps. Metal. Voices.

"It's the Imperials! Take cover!" She and Ralof duck to opposite sides of the gate, he with his two axes ready, her with her one still pointed downward. She feels her senses tighten, the slight focusing of her eyesight and hearing, the sudden sensation of being able to feel everything and anything, from the individual links of the metal to the oiliness of the leather. The voices grow louder. One is familiar.

The Imperial bitch.

"Get this gate open," the woman screeches, and Olga brings her axe up, lips set in a feral grin.

The gate opens. Two bodies walk through, the Imperial bitch and a lackey. They suspect nothing. Olga waits, hardly breathing, waits until the stupid bitch turns with her hands on her hips, probably ready to bark out another order, and sees the crouched figure of Olga, her war axe already whistling through the air.

The axe hits her in the shoulder, sinks in, and Olga rips it out and hits again, strikes her armor and sends bits of metal scattering across the room. The Imperial bitch gasps, staggers, draws her sword, but Olga is quicker, crazier, and the next hit lodges the axe in the bitch's thigh, cracks a femur. Blood spurts in crescents, splatters on Olga's cuirass and on the stones, and the scent of it drives her over the edge, the stained blade flashing and flashing over again until the Imperial bitch falls and begs, "Mercy!" The last hit is the final one, the killing blow, a solid strike to the Imperial bitch's throat that crushes her windpipe and makes her gargle with blood. Olga steps back and watches the Imperial bitch crumple, list her side and die in a puddle of her own gore.

It feels good. It feels too good. But she doesn't care. Ralof grunts to her left, and the lackey drops to the floor, clutching his chest as the last of his breath wheezes through his teeth. Olga looks over at him, and the corner of her mouth quirks in an almost smile. _Not bad for double axes. Not bad at all._

They both drag the bodies away from the growing pool of blood and begin searching them for anything that might be useful, gold, weapons, maps, keys. The Imperial bitch wears one around her neck, and Ralof breaks the chain and takes it, muttering, "Here we are. Let's see if it opens that door." Olga stays with the bodies, strips them both of their armor and weapons, and of anything they happened to have on. The Imperial bitch's armor is well-crafted, heavy, better than the flimsy curaiss she wears now. Imperial armor though it may be, Olga has no qualms about stripping off the curaiss and greedily pulling on the bitch's armor, leather and what's probably steel settling comfortably over her body. It's heaviness is reassuring.

She takes the bitch's sword too, sheaths the war axe in her sash. The iron dagger Olga keeps as a last resort, just in case she gets disarmed at any point in the near future. For her wrists, she takes the gauntlets to protect the cuts. Olga's brow furrows, and she tries to summon the energy she had learned was magic back in the cave. She had done it a few times before, mostly by accident, but there was a certain feeling she had learned to associate with it, a sort of burning beneath her skin and in her bones, slightly different for each spell. The healing spell had been a warmth throbbing in her chest. She tries to remember it, to focus on it, but the keep shakes and moans dangerously, and she loses her fragile concentration in a wave of panic. Ralof pulls on her arm.

"Let's get out of here before the dragon brings down the tower on our heads."

He has a point. Olga shoves the discarded curaiss and the lackey's armor and weapons into a knapsack and throws it over her shoulders. Merchants, she's learned, don't ask too many questions when you offer them good armor and wares. They can be notoriously blind to details.

She also scoops up bitch's helmet and jams it over her head as she follows Ralof through the now-open gate and into a dimly lit hallway and down a flight of stairs. Ralof jogs beside her, his face set in a grim line. The air, always chilly in Skyrim, turns damp and cold, and the walls are slicked with ice and water. This is the bowels of Helgen, its dark underbelly, the place that you don't leave once you enter it. The smell of dank vegetation and mud pervades the air, but it smells better than the meat and bone stink of the cave, and after a few deep breaths through the nose, Olga doesn't smell it anymore. The solidity of her armor and of her weapons goes a long way in bringing the scattered pieces of her mind together, but a few pieces are still loose and jangling in her head, still setting her teeth on edge. Every little sound, every drip of water, every dull creak and crash she hears, and her body tightens like a coil, ready to spring at any second.

Ralof doesn't speak, and she doesn't try to engage him. Her knapsack bounces on her back. The reach a landing, and she strides forward, but Ralof grabs her waist pulls her back, shouting, "Look out!" Olga yelps and digs her nails into his arm. The ceiling collapses in a rush of stone and wood, and she and Ralof fall backwards, a tangle of limbs and legs. Coughing, she disengages herself, pushes aside his helping hands with impatience, and she staggers to her feet, surveying the damage.

An entire passageway has been cut off from them, blocked by huge chunks of debris that neither of them will be able to move. The only opening for them is a locked door to her left. Olga's lips pull back in a snarl. The whole structure of the keep is falling down around their ears because of that damn dragon, and she's not about to let it kill her with a damn cave-in.

"That dragon doesn't give up easy," Ralof says from behind her. "Looks like we're going this way." He uses his key to unlock the door and Imperial soldiers fly in from a hallway and scurry forward, brandishing their weapons and dropping pieces of food and glasses in their rush. Olga unsheathes her sword and charges into the midst of them, cutting down at arms, legs, shields, anything that crosses her blade's path. The battle-rhythm enters her blood, makes her come alive in a bloom of frenzied joy and unrelenting rage, and the scattered pieces of her mind coming together in all the wrong ways. Her sword bites into anything that it can find until there's nothing left but mangled bodies and a slight fever pounding in her skull. She pants, hands braced against her knees, and Ralof pushes past her, fishes through some of the barrels lined up against the wall. As the fever recedes, she strips the bodies of their armors and weapons and stuffs them in her knapsack. She can't carry all of it, and throws some of the boots and gauntlets away in favor of the armor itself. Those sell for better prices.

It's getting easier now to ignore the dead body in favor of the loot. Olga can't even remember what had held her back with Gunjar. A misplaced sense of morality? That's the first thing to go on the battlefield.

"Olga!" Ralof beckons her over and hands her some bottles. "Potions," he explains. "They'll come in handy later."

"Are there any more?"

"I didn't look. I want to get out of this damned tower before it call comes down."

Olga does a sweep of the room and rifles through the cupboards quickly, piking up more potions and a bowl of salt. The salt is totally worthless to her at this point, but a fragment of her mind wants it for no reason, and she scoops it all up and takes it in the knapsack. Worst comes to worst, she'll ditch some of it later if it gets too heavy to carry easily.

They hurry on, down another flight of stairs, but at the landing, Ralof stops and flings out a hand. The floor is covered in scorch marks and blood. The air itself is burned. Olga lips her licks, tastes the ashes. She and Ralof advance slowly, their feet silent against the stones as they turn the corner and meet the massacre.

"Troll's blood," Ralof breathes. "A torture room."

Stormcloaks had charged the room at some point, but they had not made it back out. Their bodies lay where they had fallen, almost unrecognizable except for the scraps of blue cloth that had escaped the burning. The scent of charred meat hangs like a cloud over their heads. Olga's mind reels back to the cave. _ It's all the same. All the same. Broken, maimed bodies, burnt beyond recognition. Crispy flesh like charred skeever. Always wondering what was in that stew, skeever or person. Bodies, bodies everywhere, blood, and the smell, Talos the smell._

_Bloody spines on the walls, like decorations, chimeras made out of spines and animal heads walking and wailing like demented ghosts until they turn to ashes._

There's movement to the far end of the room. Without even thinking, Olga screams, spins, and throws the axe, runs after the whirling weapon, and is splashed in the face with blood as it hits home. Something in Imperial armor goes down, howling, and the smell of magic explodes in the air. Lightning whizzes past Olga's face, and still screaming, she drops down on it, grabs the axe handle, and wrenches it out with a crunch. The howling rises in pitch to a death song, but she doesn't care. The axe comes down again and again, long after the body stops moving, and only Ralof's savage jerk on her arm brings her back to her senses. She looks up at him, eyes wild, her wrist caught in his tight grasp, and he stares down at her with something akin to horror on his face. The axe clatters to the floor.

"He's dead," Ralof says. "Let the dead rest."

He drops her hand and steps away from her, won't touch her again as she stands from the bloody, fleshy mess and staggers away away from it, swaying on her feet. Her hand catches a small table, knocks it down, and a book and small bag plop to the floor. Lockpicks scatter and she scrambles to pick them up, leaving bloody finger trails on the floor. The book she takes too for no other reason than it's there.

"Hey. You ever picked a lock before?" Ralof looks down at her. She shakes her head. "Want to learn? Go get that cage open. There's gold. I'm going to look for more potions." His boots clomp past her coldly, and she sits, shivering. _He's frightened,_ she realizes. _He's very frightened._ "Get going with that lock!"

It's not that difficult, she finds, once you realize that the pick can rotate. Two picks lay broken already at her feet, and she's determined this one won't. Her tongue peeks out between her teeth as she gingerly turns the lock and Gods be praised, the damn thing finally clicks and springs open. She looks to Ralof with a grin of successes on her face, but he's not paying attention to her, is in another cage, sifting through shelves and drawers. Her grin falters.

The mage has been dead a long time, if his frozen skin is anything to go by, and she offers a silent prayer to Talos for his soul. To die like this, in a place like this...The gold isn't much, maybe enough to buy food, but she takes it like she was told, and the magic potion as well. A quick search of the mage gives her twenty-five more pieces of gold and a spell book, all of which she shoves into the knapsack. The temptation to take his robes is there, but his indignity in death stills her hand, and she leaves him be. Let him keep his clothes. She has no need for them, and he doesn't deserve to rot naked in a cage, stripped of everything but his skin.

She rises, sighs, and looks to Ralof for direction. He stands by a weapons rack, watching her quietly, his arms folded across his chest. Once he sees that she's ready, he nods for her to walk to the next hallway and follows a distance behind and to the side, his hand hovering over his weapon.

Olga understands what he's doing and why, and can't blame him for taking precautions. Have her walk first, keep an eye on her back, watch for any sudden, sharp movements, take care of the problem before it arises. He's a good soldier, a smart one, and she respects that. It's probably how he's stayed alive for so long, by taking chances, but by only taking those chances that he can control, making sure he stays in power throughout it all. Smart, smart man. She doesn't know whether to turn to him and explain or just keep walking. Can she even explain? She doesn't remember much, not enough for it to make sense to another person. How to even explain it if she could? She digs at the flickers of the memory, trying to find something solid and concrete to show to him, to explain her actions.

Would he understand though? Should she even try?

"Have you...have you ever run into Necromancers?" she offers him, not turning around. Ralof grunts.

"Can't say that I have. I might have been an adventurer before I became a Stormcloak, but all that amounted to was wasting a lot of coin at inns so I could have somewhere warm to sleep. And settling a few drunken brawls here and there. People would challenge me all the time to fist cuffs."

She tries again. "But do you, do you know what they do?"

Again, the same grunt. "I know they belong to the school of resurrection, but other than that, I don't know. I don't care for them, if that's what you're asking. Leave all that fancy magic to the Elves. I never had much use for it."

He's not interested and she stops, and they pass through another torture room, this one full of hanging cages with skeletons in them. The piles of bone dust on the floor testify as to how long these bodies have been here, untended and uncared for by the Imperials. Ralof doesn't stop, but Olga takes the time to collect a bit of the dust, that same part of her mind calling out for it as it had called out for the salt. She dips her fingers in one of the bowls and tastes the dust, shudders as her body rejects the taste.

An old memory swims to the surface her thoughts, of warm sunlight on her back and flowers all around her. Solveig, young and unscarred, carries a woven basket in her hands, filled with red and blue mountain flowers. She, Olga, carefully picks thistle petals, avoiding the pricking leaves and thorns. Bees buzz around them, drunk on heady honey and pollen.

Olga can almost smell the scene, so out of place among the other memories. An older life, before the killing, before the Necromancers. An easier life. Solveig, happier, not sullen, not on the cusp of a terrible womanhood.

Olga smiles a bit. Solveig had always been impatient to grow up. She'd hated being young, had always wanted to be an adult and respected.

"Make me a potion to make me older," she'd demanded one time. "Make me older, Olga. Do it, please."

Olga closes her eyes and lets herself fall into the recollection. The potion she'd made was nothing more than a honeyed tea, but Solveig had strutted around the rest of the day like she was ten years older than her age. Other recipes come to mind. Wheat and imp stool for health. Snowberries and purple mountain flowers for the cold. Simple recipes that would sell well to travelers and take care of minor cuts and scrapes.

_How old had Solveig been? Fifteen? Sixteen at the end?_ Olga tries to remember. Solveig had been six years younger than her, the baby of the family. What did that make her? _Fifteen in the end, maybe sixteen. So, twenty-one? Twenty-two?_ Is she really that young? She feels older. So much older.

"Ralof?"

"Hmm?"

"How old are you?"

"Thirty-four," he answers. "Why?"

"Curiosity." She plays with the straps of her knapsack. "I'm not sure how old I am. I think I'm twenty-two, but I'm not sure."

He doesn't ask her why and they lapse into silence again, walking through strange, subterranean cave systems. A few more gold coins glisten in the bluish light, and Olga takes them absent-mindedly, her thoughts dwelling on the two sisters she can barely remember.

She'd made potions for Helga in the last days, trying to keep her alive, sneaking out during the night to find flowers and anything that might stop the bleeding and soothe the infection. The woman they had brought her to...she had been nothing more than an old crone with no knowledge of alchemy.

Alchemy?

"I was supposed to be an alchemist," Olga whispers. "I wanted to be an alchemist."

"I was apprenticed to a blacksmith." She jumps, looks back at him. Ralof lifts his hand from his weapon and moves forward a bit, walking with her instead of at her. "I didn't like it much, so I ran away with a few weapons and became an adventurer. I did that for a few years and built up a name for myself as someone who could get things done, whatever that means, and then I ran across a Stormcloak base and joined them. Skyrim is Nord land. The Empire doesn't need to tell us what we can and cannot do." A sort of bitterness seeps into his voice, and Olga looks at him questioningly. They've come to an open area, and he holds his arm out, stops her without having to touch her. "Be quiet and careful. There's a bear up ahead and I'd rather not tangle with her. We can sneak past her, or if you want, take these and stay far enough away." He hands her a bow and a few cheap iron arrows.

Olga has no intentions of tackling a bear right now, and she drops into a crouch and sidles forward, boots barely leaving the ground as she walks. The bear stirs only once, and she freezes, draws her bow, and keeps moving. The bear snuffles and goes back to quiescence. She can hear Ralof moving behind her, clumsy and noisy, unable to walk correctly in the crouch like she can. He's probably never done it before, being a soldier. What use was it to a soldier to be able to sneak around? Easier to just run in and kill everything than sneak in and dispatch everyone in a quiet, unassuming manner. That was an assassin's job, not a Stormcloak's.

It's odd, she finds, that the crouch is not that unfamiliar to her. Some muscles protest, but the majority of them remember how to do it, and even standing as she is now and walking normally, she remembers how to soundlessly and seamlessly drop into the crouch at a moment's notice. Somewhere, somehow, she had done this before.

She wishes she would remember when and how. _Not in the cave. Maybe during the years of murder? Probably. It seems likely._ Ahead, actual sunlight streams in, sharp and bright, and she and Ralof sigh in relief and hurry out.

Olga has to close her eyes when she steps into the open, and the glare of the sun and the snow turns her eyelids red. The air smells good, clean, snowy, but beneath it, there's a hint of fire and wood. Ralof grabs her hand and pulls her down, shadows crossing her face. Her eyes pop open, and he presses his finger to his lips, points up from behind the rock shielding them. She follows his finger and gasps. Alduin, blacker than night against the sky, flies off, roaring, his Voice enough to shake the very ground beneath her feet, heading towards the mountains. _ Cursed mountains_, she thinks. _Terribly cursed mountains now._

"There he goes," Ralof says lightly. "Looks like he's gone for good this time." Olga nods and takes a deep breath.

"Where do you think he came from?"

"Gods only know. Let's go. We're not far from Riverwood. I have a sister there, Gerdur, who might be able to help us."

"You still want me to travel with you?"

"I wouldn't have survived without you." That's a bold-faced lie, but she appreciates it nonetheless. "But we need to keep moving. No way to know if anyone else made it out alive. But this place is sure to be swarming with Imperials soon enough. We'd better clear out of here." He takes off at a run down the path and she lags behind, stopping to grab a handful of snowberries from a bush and a few mountain flowers from the side of the road. She's aware of how stupid her actions are, but the tiny bit of her clamoring for normalcy demands she take them, and she just grabs what she can and shoves them into whatever pocket she can find first.

He talks to her intermittently, asks her if she wants to go to Windhelm to help free Skyrim. "You've seen the true face of the Empire here today," he says, and she nods. From his cuirass he produces a map and while running, unfolds it and shows the nine major holds of Skyrim. "This one, right here, is Windhelm. If Jarl Ulfric has survived, and he has, this is where you'll find him. There are a few Stormcloak camps all over the mountains, though, and you can join us at any of them as long as you prove yourself loyal to Skyrim and the Nords."

"Why do you hate the others so much?" she asks.

"Do you have to ask? Look at what the Thalmor have done to us. Those damn Elves think they're so superior to us, think that they have the right to tell us who we can and can't worship. Talos is a Divine, just as much as Akatosh and Kynareth. The Elves have no right to say that Talos is not a god."

Olga nods and doesn't push it further. Her own personal belief in Talos is cursory at best, though she invokes him out of old habit. Her time in the cave has done damage to her belief. Where had Talos been in that cave? If he can abandon her, why can't she abandon him?

Ralof continues to talk abut the Stormcloaks and their plans for reclaiming Skyrim for the Nords, and eventually she tunes him out, more interested in her surroundings than in the future of Skyrim. A formation of rocks catches her interest, and she touches Ralof's arm gently and points.

"What are those?"

"Oh, the standing stones? They're all over Skyrim. Some say they have magical powers. Go on ahead. Look at them."

Ralof stays behind as Olga hops over the ledge and and look at the three stones. Etched into their surfaces are representations of figures, one a mage, one a thief, and one a warrior. She looks back at Ralof, and he shrugs, tucks his braid behind his ear. "Go ahead, touch one. See what happens." She looks them over again, plays with a ragged nail on her index finger. The Warrior Stone is most appealing to her, and she reaches out and brushes the figure. A warmth courses through her arm and into her chest, and the stone glows green in its hollowed center.

"Ah, a warrior, good choice." Ralof nods in approval. "That's the stone I chose as well, back in my younger years. After things have calmed down a bit, perhaps you and I can visit one of the Stormcloak camps and we'll get you situated into the army."

"Perhaps. Once things calm down." Once she calms down, he means. Can't have a berserker soldier running around, a liability to everyone. She shakes her head and follows quietly, heading down the road to Riverwood and whatever else lay there.

…

Almost done with the tutorial! I really hate this tutorial, moreso now than I did when I saw it seventeen times.


	3. Of Murder and Gerdur

Chapter 3: Of Murder and Gerdur  
>Morgana Maeve<p>

This chapter is late. Why? THEEEEEEESIS. If I never have to write a thesis again, it will be too soon.

Characterization is a bit different than in the game. I blame my laziness for not actually going through the opening sequence to remind myself how these characters actually work.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Everything here is property of Bethesda.

…...

They reach Riverwood near sundown with three bloody wolf pelts tucked under their arms and nasty bite on Olga's leg tied up with a bit of cloth. It burns like something fierce, but Ralof promises her that she'll be able to find something to take care of it in The Riverwood Trader.

"Lucan Valerius might be a bit of a strange bird," he says, "but his prices are fair and his stock is good, for what he can get. We're a small town and don't see that much foot traffic, so sometimes things get a little scarce. But we have an inn and a blacksmith and a general store, and so we can't ask for much else." Ralof gives her a grim little smile. "We don't even have guards. Bad for bandit raids, but good for us right now, eh Olga?"

She half smiles back, limping behind him, her leg starting to stiffen and throb. She can feel the blood still leaking from under the bandage, and all she wants right now is to sit down and rest for a year.

They enter through the main gate just as the last bits of the sun turn the sky a deep, burnished orange. A few people wander around the town, and an old woman hails them from her porch, her stringy body hanging over the railing in her increasingly frantic waving and gesticulating.

"I saw a dragon!" she yells. "It flew right over town! It was a dragon, I tell you!" Olga and Ralof shoot each other worried looks. If Alduin had been spotted here, then Imperials are sure to come. Or if it hadn't been Alduin, that's a whole new problem to take care of. One dragon is bad enough, but two? "I'm telling you, I saw a dragon!"

Hands push at them from behind. "Excuse me, sorry, please excuse me. I'm terribly sorry about my mother. Her age and all." A young Nord brushes past them, tall and slim, willowy. Olga wrinkles her nose at him. "Now, Mother," he tells the old woman, "go back inside. You're bothering the entire town."

"But I saw a dragon!"

"Yes, yes, I'm sure you did. Those lizards keep getting bigger and bigger every year. Now go back inside."

"It was a dragon!"

"You think everything is a dragon. Go inside. You're annoying me now too." He takes his mother by her shoulders and nearly drags her protesting back into the house, she all the while insisting that she saw a dragon and Oblivion take it all it was a dragon. Ralof shakes his head.

"That was Sven, I think. Last time I saw him, he was a little lad, barely knee high. He's grown quite a bit. Always said he wanted to get away from here, wonder why he's still around."

"Sometimes you find yourself staying in the very place you despise simply because you despise it," Olga says quietly. Ralof turns to her and studies her in surprise, his brows quirked. She meets his eyes calmly, without word.

"Aye, sometimes you do," he finally agrees. "Come. Gerdur works at the mill with Hod. We should go see her before it gets too dark." Olga shrugs and follows silently. Those words hadn't been her own, had been plucked from a growing trove of phrases rattling around in her throat. Helga's words? Or the mysterious shadowy Father? Maybe even the warm, sweet-smelling Mother? Does it even matter? She is far away from home now, even though she never despised it.

Olga looks around as Ralof leads her through town. A small town, Riverwood is, like he had said, with a smell of something like dirt and fish. The fish smell she can identify directly. A fish rack stands at the bank of the river, and salmon carcasses hang from strings, drying, probably about to be cured with salt. Her stomach growls, loud enough for Ralof to hear and chuckle.

"Don't worry, sister," he says, and she fixes him with puzzled, suspicious look that he either ignores or doesn't recognize. "Gerdur will feed you well."

"Do you think she will accept me as easily as that?" Olga challenges. "You at least are family. I'm a stranger."

"You are one of us, sister. A true Nord doesn't ignore a fellow kinsman in need."

_No,_ Ogla thinks, _only every other race in Tamriel_. The hatred against Imperials and High Elves she can understand, Imperials for their interference and the Elves for their blatant superiority complex. But as for the other races...Talos, she can't even remember most of the other races. _Imperials, High Elves, Nords...Bretons, yes Bretons...and...others. Wood Elves. Others._ She snorts in disgust. Pathetic to not know this much of her history, this much of the history of her land, if this is her land.

She glances of up at Ralof, studies the sturdy, swarthy face, the blonde hair, the muscular, power body. She's always suspected that her Nordic heritage is colored with something else, maybe Breton or even Imperial as the case may be. Her dark hair and wiry body certainly aren't Nordic. She wonders if Ralof sees that, wonders if he wonders about it.

"Maybe I'm not much of a kinswoman," she says lightly, testingly.

"You're a Nord, aren't you?"

"Look at me." She gestures to her skin, takes off her helmet and shows him the dark mop of hair hanging over her ears. "I don't look Nordic, do I?"

To her surprise, he laughs. "You're a Nord, through and through. A true child of Skyrim."

"I'm not even sure if I'm from Skyrim."

"Nonsense. All Nords hail from Skyrim."

"I might be part Imperial."

He laughs again and nudges her on the arm, makes her trip and stumble by accident. "Trust me, you would know if you were Imperial. You'd be as vain and self-important as the lot of them. No, sister, I've seen you fight, and you fight as a Nord does."

_But Nord warriors aren't bersekers._ He's carefully, purposely forgotten about that for whatever reason he might have. Olga looks away and chews on her lip, troubled and distracted. Her leg screams for rest, and the slow walking demanded by the injury doesn't make it any less easier to travel. Riverwood, for all its smallness, makes her feel as though they've been walking through the town for hours and getting nowhere at the same time. She bites back a sigh and tries to shove the pain to the back of her thoughts. _There'd been worse pain. Just have to remember that. There'd been much worse._

A barking dog sets her on slight edge, her fingers twitching for her blade. Two small children run past, shouting and laughing, sparing Ralof and her no second glance. But what a sight they must be, a dirty, grimy Stormcloak who smelled like horse shit and a white-eyed, skinny waif half dressed in Imperial armor with a festering bite on her leg. She's surprised no one's stopped them or demanded identification or anything else. A thought strikes her. It's not that no one's noticed them. Everyone has noticed them. Even the children have noticed them. But no one is going to say anything or challenge them in any way. Riverwood is an unguarded town. Its survival relies on its residents' ability to see, dismiss, and ignore all in the space of seconds. As long as there's no trouble, a stranger could wander in unmolested, stay a night, and be gone in the morning, no trace left. And if asked, the townspeople saw nothing. Stranger? What stranger? We don't get that many people coming here to Riverwood.

A perfect town for two fugitives, especially if one has family here.

Ralof directs her off the path and across thick, springy grass to the mill, where sawdust falls like snow and the scent of wet wood hovers nicely in the air. A woman watches from the ground as three workers scurry around up on the mill, two lifting logs and pushing them through the cutter, and the third pouring water in the trough to keep everything moving smoothly. Torches offer small pockets of light on the landing.

"Gerdur!" Ralof raises his hand in greeting. The woman's head snaps around and her expression goes through a dance of surprise, relief, worry, and fear.

"Ralof?" Her arms drop to her sides. "What are you doing here?"

Ralof takes her up in his arms and embraces Gerdur warmly, even as she pushes at his shoulders and complains about his smell. "Oh Gerdur, I thought I might never see you again."

"What are you talking about? Where did you come from?" He puts her down and laughs. Her eyebrows go up. "You look awful. What happened?" Gerdur's eyes find Olga. "And who is this?"

Ralof beckons Olga closer and presents her to his sister. "This is my friend, Olga. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have survived."

Gerdur's arms go back to her chest. "Survived? Survived what?"

Ralof leans closer. "A dragon attacked Helgen."

"A dragon? Like the legends? You're joking."

Olga shakes her head. "A dragon attacked Helgen," she says. "It destroyed the town."

"Helgen? What were you doing in Helgen? Ralof, what is going on? How did you get to Helgen? You were supposed to be in Windhelm."

"We ran into an Imperial ambush on the way that captured us. It was me, Jarl Ulfric, Gunjar, Loke, Frigg, and Tyr."

Gerdur cuts him off. "What? Jarl Ulfric? Jarl Ulfric was captured?" Her hands fly to her mouth, and her face visibly pales under the sunburn.

"Aye, we were all captured. They had us lined up, ready for the chopping block, but when they had Olga on the block, a dragon flew down from the mountain and attacked. Some of us escaped into the keep, Jarl Ulfric included. Have you seen him?"

"No. No one's come down the path all day." Gerdur shifts her weight from foot to foot, looking back at the river. "We smelled smoke in the air but didn't realize that it was Helgen on fire. Are you sure Jarl Ulfric survived? Why isn't he with you?" The look she throws Olga is almost disparaging, and Olga's hackles rise. There's a question under that question. Why this girl? Why not your Jarl? Why save this thing over your leader?

"If anyone has survived, it's Jarl Ulfric. I can assure you of that. We were separated when that damned dragon attacked the keep, but I know he survived. We should send word to Windhelm. That's where he'd go first. The Imperials can't touch him there."

"I'll see if we can spare someone to act as a courier." Ralof's sister shakes her head, "We'll also need people to watch the road for Imperial soldiers. They'll be coming soon, searching for survivors."

"And hunting Stormcloaks. Aye. We need a watch."

Gerdur turns and shouts, "Frodnar! Frodnar, come here! Frodnar, where are you?" A little boy comes bounding up followed by the dog from earlier. Olga watches as the young boy races up, stops a few feet away, and then runs to Ralof, throwing his arms around the man's waist.

"Uncle Ralof! I've missed you! Killed any Imperials lately! Have you met Jarl Ulfric? What's he like?" The endless chatter streams forth, and despite herself, Olga smiles and softens to Frodnar, finding his energy and innocence refreshing. "Are you staying long? Did you bring me a present? Do you want to see the trick I taught Stump?"

"Frodnar!" Gerdur's voice is like a whip in the air, sharp and crackling. Everyone jumps, including Ralof. "Go to the road and watch for any Imperials. Run back here and tell me or your father if you see any, understand?"

"But Mom, I want to talk to Uncle Ralof!"

"Frodnar! Go!"

The boy sighs. "Yes, Mom." He and the dog run off, Frodnar waving back to them. Gerdur watches them go and shakes her head.

"You are too rough on him, sister," Ralof admonishes her.

"Times are rough," Gerdur snaps. "He needs to learn danger. He still thinks he can play soldier and that it will suffice. He needs to be prepared for when the war comes. You should know that, Ralof." Her nostrils flare and her feet tramp down on the grass, flattening the strands into a woven carpet of green, and Ralof reaches for her arm and squeezes it reassuringly.

"We will win Skyrim back for the Nords, Gerdur. The war can't go on much longer."

His sister shakes her head as if in disagreement, and Olga is inclined to agree with her. The war has shown no signs of stopping, and if anything, this slight lull in the fighting only means that a bigger battle is on its way. Capturing Jarl Ulfric had been a start for the Imperials and a taste of victory. Now they won't stop until they have him under their axe again.

They should have killed him first and saved the trouble. In their necessity to teach him a lesson, to kill his followers and make him watch the blood spill from their necks, they had undone all of their efforts. If they had killed him first, despite the threat of an uprising from the Stormcloak soldiers, then the army would in tatters, regardless of the dragon attack. Scattered bands of soldiers up in the mountains, ignorant of their leader's death, easy to attack if ambushed. They wouldn't have lasted very long at all.

Gerdur is speaking again, and Olga forces herself to listen to the wiry woman. "The war will last however long it takes. Come. Let's get you two inside. I don't want Alvor to see you and I know he's on watch tonight."

"Alvor?" Olga asks.

"The blacksmith." Gerdur frowns at her. "His nephew is an Imperial soldier, and I have no trouble believing that if he sees either you or Ralof, he'll send word to the Imperials that you're here. He's loyal to the Empire through and through." There's acid in her voice, and Olga lets the subject be, drifts in her thoughts to Alduin and his lizard eyes.

He had looked at her, she's sure of it. He had looked at her and had noticed her and had dismissed her in seconds. But he had looked at her. She had caught his attention. Had it been coincidence that he had flown down from the mountain just as she had faced her death? She doesn't think so.

Had Jarl Ulfric called down the dragon? No doubt that's a theory making its rounds through the camps. Jarl Ulfric, user of the Voice, the killer of kings, Dragon Caller. It has a nice ring to it, and no doubt such a reputation will bolster loyalty to the Stormcloaks and an increase in recruits. But why call the dragon when she was on the block? Why not before, when his man had been there? A slight thrill runs down her thighs. Jarl Ulfric had been gagged. He would not have been able to call Alduin.

They reach Gerdur's door, but before they can enter, Frodnar comes running up to them, face flushed, eyes bright, Stump close at his heels. "A soldier is coming down the road!" he exclaims. Ralof goes very still, and Olga's hand creeps towards her sword. Gerdur's face remains mostly calm, but the sudden tick at the side of her mouth belies an underlying anxiety.

"How many, Fordnar?" she asks, and her son shakes his head and holds up his finger.

"Just one. I think he's injured. He's not walking very fast at all and he limps."

Ralof taps his sister's shoulder and a glance passes between them. "Go inside, Frodnar," she says quietly, pushing him into the door frame. "Good inside and wait upstairs, okay?"

"Mom?"

"Inside and upstairs! Please, Frodnar!" Something in his mother's tone spooks him enough to listen, and Gerdur catches the door as it closes, shutting it with a soft, almost soundless click. Just as silently, Gerdur reaches into her belt and procures a twisted, disease-green dagger that she clutches with well-worn fingers. Ralof draws his axes and holds them to his sides, moves forward down the steps and cloaks himself with shadows. Gerdur follows a hair's breadth behind him, her face taut in the pale, muted moonlight. They move quickly to the road and melt into the darkness, only the barest glint of metal and the rustle of rough fabric giving their position away. From up the road, the sounds of shuffling footsteps and clinking armor travel, magnified by the strange emptiness in the air. Tension leaves a bitter taste on Olga's lips. The sounds come closer, are sharper, more defined. His muttered curses and grumblings roll down the hill before him and pool at Olga's feet.

"Damned cursed war...nothing good...warm ale...food...a real bed, not a rotten pile of hay...

She gasps. _Talos, that voice. It's Hadvar. By the Nine, he survived and made it home_. He passes, still complaining, and two dark shapes detach from the rest of the shadows and follow behind, feet slithering over the stones.

Olga realizes a second too late that murder is planned for tonight, and she rushes after them, crashing through underbrush and weeds until she catches Gerdur around the waist and drags her down with a hoarse cry, wresting the dagger away from her. Hadvar whirls and stumbles back, and Olga screams, "Run! Damn it, Hadvar, run!"

"Prisoner?"

"Go!" Gerdur flails beneath her, hissing and spitting and pinching, and Olga throws her head back, trying to protect her eyes from the wickedly sharp fingernails scratching at her cheeks. "For the love of Talos, go!"

He hesitates still, damn him, as if not quite sure why the prisoner from earlier is currently engaged in a fierce struggle to keep him alive. She can see the confusion clouding behind his eyes, and for a moment she thinks he's going to be lost, that Ralof will just go right ahead and kill him even as she pins his sister to the floor, but no, she underestimates him and his intentions badly.

"Hadvar." Ralof's voice cuts through the darkness.

"Ralof! You survived!"

"Hadvar, go home and say nothing of this." Where Hadvar's voice carries the inflection of surprise and almost gladness, Ralof's voice is void of any emotion. He could have been talking to dog for all anyone knows. "Go home and hide in your uncle's house and mention nothing of this to him. Tell him what you want about Helgen, but you never saw Olga or me here, do you understand? As far as you know, we died at Helgen."

"You always did have a problem with authority," Hadvar answers almost fondly. He holds up his empty hands. "Fine, fine, you win. Even if I wasn't burned half to death and sore, I wouldn't fight you. As far as I know, no Stormcloaks or prisoners made it out of Helgen." He looks down at Olga, and his teeth flash in the moonlight. "Thank you, Olga." And then he's gone, jogging down the path, disappearing into the darkness. Olga sighs and releases Gerdur's shoulders, and the furious woman bats her aside, screeching. Olga splays on the stones, held down on her stomach by Gerdur's angry knee.

"You fool! Why did you do that? He's an enemy to Skyrim and a traitor to his people! You stupid, stupid fool!" Her fists come down on Olga's neck and back and hit upon that secret spot where the spine becomes the neck, and Olga goes rigid and screams. Birds take to the air in fright, squawking, and voices rise in concern from several of the buildings ahead. Gerdur gasps and withdraws, scrambling away, and Ralof reaches down and pulls Olga up, shakes her until she runs out of breath and her teeth chatter in her skull. Her eyes are wide, more whites than anything else, and glazed, staring out at a deep nothingness. The cave overwhelms her, sucks her back into its dark depths. 

Blood on the floor, five faces, smell of magic in the air. Terrible pain, bone under blood, extraction.

She screams again and Ralof shakes her more. Her eyes roll back and the last thing she remembers is the greasy feel of Ralof's braid on her cheek and the pressure of his fingers on her skin.

She wakes in a bed, not slowly but all at once, throwing off blankets and covers as she sits up, mouth cotton-dry, body hot and shaky. The bed is soaked with sweat, as is the light dress protecting her modesty. Her armor, she notices, sits neatly on the chest at the foot of the bed. Olga pants and tries to remember where she is. The smell of cooked beef tickles her nose and makes her salivate.

"Glad to see you awake, sister," Ralof's voice says from her right. "You had us worried there for a bit. Half the town thinks a ghost is walking among us now." Olga looks up at him and he smiles down at her and hands her a bowl of stew. "Eat this. It will make you feel better." She slurps at it, scalds her tongue, slurps more slowly. The stew is meaty and full, but most of all it's hot food in her stomach, and that goes a long way. Ralof sits on the edge of the bed with her, making idle conversation. "I want you to know that Gerdur didn't mean any of what she said," he tells her. "The war has done some damage to her. She used to be so nice and caring."

"It's desperate times. We all do things we don't want to, or wouldn't normally do." She finds that she's actually not mad at Gerdur, can understand the motivation behind her actions. "I'm sorry I tackled her. I couldn't let you kill Hadvar though." A ferocity shines in her eyes. "He helped me. And helped a child. I can't just turn my back on that."

"Hadvar has always been a model citizen," Ralof says. "Even when we were boys, he was the most trustworthy, most helpful, most useful son in the village. I used to hate him for it." Ralof laughs. It's not surprising that he joined the Imperial Legion as soon as he was of age. He always did like order."

"He seemed to respect you."

"Well I am his elder by five months."

"What about Gerdur?"

"I told her not worry about him. If I know Hadvar, as soon as he is able, he'll find the nearest Imperial post and report back to them, leaving out the fact he found us here. Riverwood is his home too, and I don't think he wants a battle touching it. Gerdur will have to accept that sooner or later." He stops and looks at his hands.

Olga sips at her stew and feels the warmth of the broth slide over her bones all the way down to her toes. She flexes her feet for the first time in months and sighs at the gentle relief of pressure in her arches. The straw strewn liberally across the bed crackles and snaps as she shifts.

"When you feel up to talking," Ralof tells her. "we'll go find Gerdur and discuss what should be done. And we'll get you something for that bite. Gerdur wrapped it, but she thinks it might be infected." He pats her knee twice, hesitates, then stands and hesitates again as if he wants to say something more but can't quite find the words to say it with. Olga watches him over the rim of her bowl. "You spoke of Necromancers earlier..." The stew, so hot in her hands, turns to an ice lump in her stomach. Somewhere, in the back of her thoughts, she had known this was coming. "Was it them..." He can't quite make himself say it and relies on subtle gestures, his hand reaching up to cover the back of his neck. Olga gives him no answer, only watches him over the bowl, not blinking, not moving. Awkwardly, he shifts, bends, and pats her knee again before fleeing down a set of stairs. She sets the stew on her lap and stares straight ahead.

So it had been Ralof who had undressed her. She'd wondered idly at that, not that it matters much. Her body is nothing to see even on the best of occasions. But his fumbling had nothing to do with a tough little body that never had the chance to fill out much before life got to it. Her fingers idly trace the skin on her neck. So he had seen, and what he had seen had disturbed him more than the dragon had, most likely. She sighs and plays with a bit of potato, picking it up with her spoon and dropping it with a splash back into the broth, drowning it until it gets away and bobs back up again for air. Then she eats it savagely and swings her feet from the bed, feet slapping against the floorboards. The dress is high-backed at least, perhaps a peace offering to make her feel better, and she pads around, looking at the meager dwelling and its meager decorations. Olga smiles. It's the nicest home she's seen in a long time.

Her feet take her to the stairs and down them, and she finds Ralof and Gerdur speaking in hushed tones. Ralof notices her first and gives his sister a quick smack on her arm, and Gerdur glares at him and at Olga in turn. Olga concentrates on spooning soup into her mouth. Gerdur stands and thrusts a small bundle at her.

"Here. This is for you," Gerdur says harshly. "For helping Ralof." Both women stare at the floor until Ralof carefully disengages the stew bowl from Olga's fingers and takes the bundle from Gerdur, closing Olga's hands around it.

"It's not much," he says. "But if you ever need anything else, come to us. We will help you. Right, Gerdur?"

"Of course," she says tightly.

The bundle consists of some dry preserves and a hunk of bread, some coins, a few pieces of smelly cheese, mead, health potions, and two silver rings. The health potions are probably the most valuable items offered here, but Olga picks up the rings and weighs them in her hands, oddly touched by this small gift. She knows that the rings don't mean much, that they are the cheapest and easiest rings to make and find, but they touch her core in a way that makes her eyes sting, and she blinks it away before anyone can notice. She remembers a ring from before, given by rough-hewn fingers, purple rather than yellow. _Amethyst_. _A silver amethyst ring._ A face flashes across her vision, young and stupidly handsome, but before she can grasp it, it slips away, back into the void of her memory, and she slips the rings onto her fingers, ignoring the unsettling heaviness lodged in her throat.

She looks up and smiles at Ralof and even offers one to Gerdur, and the woman sighs and lets down her arms. "You can rest here as long as you want," she tells Olga. "Our door will always be open to you, and there is an inn a little down the way." Gerdur waves in a direction. "But we do need a favor from you. Riverwood doesn't have many heads to spare, but we need someone to go to Whiterun and ask Jarl Balgruuf for help. We need a guard post stationed here, to protect us from the dragons. I would go, but the mill can't be left in the incapable hands of my husband, and Ralof..." Gerdur fixes her eyes on Olga's and never lets them waver. Olga holds her gaze, though her lips tighten against her teeth.

"Tell me where I need to go."

Ralof produces his map and with a quill, outlines her path to Whiterun and marks it with a quick scrawl that Olga assumes is its name. "If you just follow the road, you should reach it in a few hours, maybe a day at most. Watch out for Imperials patrolling the though. And wolves. There are giant camps surrounding it as well, so stay clear of them. Giants won't bother you if you don't bother them first." Olga nods and studies the map carefully, but Ralof folds it and hands to her. "You take it. You need it more than I do now."

"I can leave at first light."

"No." That from Gerdur. "Wait a few days. Gather your strength. You'll need it. Go see Lucan for your bite. We don't have an alchemist here, so you'll have to rely on his stock. He might still be open. He hasn't been closing his shop lately." Gerdur shrugs and the conversation peters to a close, each of the three lost in private thoughts. Olga nibbles on a bit of cheese and tries not to pull a face at it out of politeness. It's old cheese. It's old, nasty cheese.

Ralof touches her arm after a while of silence and contemplative chewing and asks, "Do you want me to show you where Lucan's shop is?" Without waiting for her answer, he stands and leads her upstairs and out into the night. True dark has settled, and all the night creatures have come out, torchbugs hovering as if suspended between the sky and the ground and moths fluttering between tree branches on whispering wings. Now that the immediate danger of dragons and murder have passed, Olga allows herself to relax by degrees, her skin loosening from her bones so that her body doesn't feel so taut, so ready to spring at a moment's notice. Ralof's fingers are warm on her arm, his touch gentle and light, almost unnoticeable as he walks her the few dozen steps to The Riverwood Trader's door. Lights flicker in all the windows, and voices banter back and forth in argument, though the words themselves are inaudible.

Ralof knocks and the voices cut off abruptly, and then he opens the door and ushers her inside. "Lucan," Ralof says in greeting. "I need your expertise."

"Well, you've come to the right place." Lucan gestures to the entirety of his store. The woman with him shoots him a nasty look. "The Riverwood Trader has everything you need."

"Oh, stop it," the woman snaps. "We need to send out a party - "

"Camilla! Customers!" Lucan hisses, and Ralof catches Olga's eye and winks. "Anyway, as I was saying, we have everything you need. So what is it that you need?"

"I need a potion or a salve for a wolf bite. My friend here's been hurt."

"A wolf bite, eh? I miiiiight have something..." He disappears behind his counter and Camilla crosses her arms and glares a hole into the ceiling. "Hmmmm, let's see here...no...no, not that either...hmmm...here we go!" He pops back up with a dusty bottle, its red liquid sloshing as he holds it up the candles. "A potion to cure all that ails you. I'll give it to you for about...say, a hundred and seventy-nine septims?"

Olga blanches and Ralof pins Lucan with a withering gaze that makes the weedy man cower a bit but not back down. "How say you take off that hundred and we'll talk from there?"

"Hmmm...I'm willing to go to a hundred and fifty septims."

"And I'm willing to go to forty-eight septims."

"Oh, for the love of Talos!" Camilla strides over and yanks the potion from Lucan's hand. "I'll give you the potion for free if you take care of a problem for us."

"Camilla! What are you doing?"

"I'm getting that claw back!"

"I said no adventures! No theatrics!"

"Let the woman talk," Ralof commands and nods at Camilla. "Go on. We're listening."

…...

Argle bargle. It's been a rough month people. A rough month. I'm glad it's almost done.

There are probably typos all over this. I apologize.


End file.
